This research will be discussing the links between violence and sports. While both the athletes and the fans are involved in violent acts, the discussion will emphasize violent behaviors exhibited by the fans of sports events. In particular, links between violence in the larger society and violence in sports will be sought.
That there is much violence in society is something that would be hard to dispute. Saul Bellow, a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, has noted in interviews that hundreds of millions of people have been murdered in the twentieth century. Modern man has become accustomed to brutality and savagery. People in modern America complain that violence in many neighborhoods is so common and excessive that they are afraid to go outside of their houses (Bellow, 1982, p. 49-50).
Bellow goes on to note that violence in modern society may be linked to the isolation and powerlessness felt by people living in urban areas. Bellow presents a vision of modern society in which people sit at home in terror, read horror stories in the newspapers, and watch violent television shows. Bellow singles out the hard core welfare society people in the cities as people living in perpetual chaos and noise, and with whom there is no reasoning. According to Bellow, after a day in that jungle most people prefer to expel the violence from their thoughts behind closed doors with entertainment and security precautions in place.
Thus, the terror and violence of society are organized by people in such a way that it is expected from their lives. People simply avoid going out at night and avoid certain streets(often
without full consciousness that this is what they are doing). People tend to focus more on their own daily grind with its hardships, ailments, tax problems, traffic, and waiting in lines. The pace of life has quickened and people have lost the sense of a private sphere. Things are now done brutally at a fast pace in socie...